snapshots from yesterday...

yesterday morning, nola got up first and we went together into avery's room. we walked in the room and before the "good morning" or "hi, mama!", i heard "nolya's wearing MY dress!!!!" i had a hard time explaining that nola is growing leaps and bounds before our eyes and i can barely remember the little baby she once was. instead, i told avery that since she's getting so tall a lot of her dresses are going to be handed down to nola who is shorter. and i coaxed her into one of her dresses that still fits (with a hood, so she can be a ghost whenever she wants) and all was well again.


these moments really do make me stop and smile at them....


oh, the face of a 1 year old who knows what she wants and can't always get it :)

um, they like things on their heads?

these 2 pictures have absolutely nothing to do with anything, but i think they're fun. for whatever reason, nola loves wearing things on her head-sunglasses, shorts, hats, tambourines...and if avery's in the right mood, she likes it too. so yesterday they had a field day.

anyway, onto the real point of this post. it's 12:41. and for half an hour the house has been quiet. and blissful. and not because we had a crazy morning that needed to be broken up. just because the girls are angels today and went down without a peep after an incredible morning playing, being gentle, being kind, being sweet and being happy.

i was somewhat concerned how everyone was going to do, given that we've been a family of 4 (sometimes 5 when mema's off work) for the last 2 months. i'm sure our neighbors thought we were the weird family that does everything together. and even if they did, i don't mind. we did do pretty much everything together this summer. but with that closeness sometimes comes anxiety when it's not the same.

but i'm happy to report that the girls did great this morning, after asking for dada about 80 times, and then asking if we were going to the res beach (:( waaaaaaaah). we had breakfast, i made some days of the week cards for the blackboard, we went grocery shopping, avery fed nola goldfish on the way home (and even asked "do you want some more, mama?"), came home to play, had lunch, all read a story in nola's room, put nola down, read 3 more stories in avery's room, put avery down and here i am. finishing my coffee that i bought at 6:15 :)

so...despite losing my wallet and having to cancel a billion things, having our disposal break, still waiting to hear any kind of news about zane's new job opportunity, having all the batteries in our home phones die within 2 days of each other making it impossible to answer the home phone (not so good when a dr is answering a page on off hours), and still having to take advil whenever i'm up and about because of my throbbing jaw...things are good :)

until next summer...

we've had a fantastic, wonderful, awesome, amazing, really good summer. i mean, so good that when i started thinking about how it was "over" last night, i started to cry. i'm a little less teary tonight, but i still can't get over just how good it was. there were definitely times of stress (nola and avery each had phases of waking before 5am and those were some long days) and irritability (honestly, it can be hard to switch gears and go from being one on one with the kids all day to having an extra set of hands around all the time), but the main emotion i think of when i think of the last 2+ months is happiness.

zane goes back to work tomorrow, i start classes on thursday and avery starts school the following week. there are lots of fall things that we're all looking forward to, but for tonight i'm just going to re-live all our mornings at the res beach, all our afternoons stuck in the house to be safe from the blazing sun, all the nights watching movies while the girls slept peacefully, all the errands that were so much easier to do with zane, all the afternoons spent getting house projects done while the girls napped...it will all be sorely missed and appreciated.

so, while the thermometer will still read in the 90's tomorrow and technically summer is still around for a few more weeks, our "summer" has come to an end and we'll be moving on...180 more work days...but who's counting?

ps, this summer has somewhat solidified my desire to stay in the education field and go with the school library teacher program. i'm not giving up these family summers easily ;)

the great catch-up.

the teeth
so a week ago i had my wisdom teeth out (well, the bottom 2). the last 2 times i've had extractions i've gotten dry socket. a horrible, agonizing, unbearable pain...i would gladly go through avery's labor and recovery ADDED with recovery from a c-section and endure that pain for months than ever have to have another dry socket. so going into this surgery, i was petrified. especially since my oral surgeon told me (as nice as he could) that if i'd gotten dry socket twice, i'd probably get it again, especially considering one of my teeth wasn't going to be a straighforward extraction.
but! i didn't!!!! i made a few changes beforehand and i managed to escape, a little (ha!) swollen, but with no major effects 1 week later.
i took this picture the night of the surgery, despite the ice packs, i swelled up enormously on the tougher extraction side and this was just the start. there were a couple times that zane looked at me and laughed at how huge my face was. if i could have smiled, i would have laughed too ;)


the sweet girls
the girls have their moments of being difficult to handle. and then they have their moments of sweetness that take our breath away. the other day nola crept up behind avery and gave her a hug. then she pulled back and gave avery's back a little kiss. avery didn't really know what to make of it, but the next day i caught her brushing nola's hair, so i think it was her way of repaying kindness:)


the weather
this summer we have been blessed with amazing weather. it's been hotter than heck at times, it's been beautifully sunny and "cool" periodically, and everything in between had just been a good fit for the kind of summer we were envisioning.
in the last four days we've had rain. and clouds. and more rain. and lots of indoor time that none of us have been used to. so we've had to get creative and resourceful.

one morning zane headed to work for a little bit and by 9am we had colored, played with playdough, painted on the chalkboard and watched some sesame street. i got online and found a bear mask to color and cut out. avery was so excited she could hardly contain herself.


the finished product.

nola heard it was a bear and did her best growling impression :)

the fall

the day that i went to the oral surgeon, nola stayed with my parents and zane took avery to "school" for her 2nd time getting to know the place. a family friend runs a playgroup/preschool for kids 2-4, two mornings a week. since avery will go to kindergarten when she's almost 6, we didn't want her in a "real" preschool for 3 years so this is a great compromise. she'll get used to being out of the house and with other kids in a more relaxed setting for a year and then we'll re-evaluate where we want to send her next fall.

i took her to visit the school one day and she had so much fun playing with all the new toys and watching the other kids from a distance. zane wanted to see what it was all about, so he had the chance to take her and hang out for a bit. i was sitting in recovery waiting for my dad to come pick me up, when i heard the nurse saying "your wife is in here" and around the corner walked zane. in my drug-induced haze i remember being so happy to see him but not having any idea how to smile or sit up without falling over. it took a minute for me to realize that if he was with me, he wasn't with avery. at some point he told me that he had left avery at school! after worrying and not knowing how she'd react to a new place without the comfort of mom and dad there, she did amazing! she ate snack with the kids and listened to stories and songs and when zane went back to pick her up, he had to wrestle the toys away from her and run out the door :)

i'm sure there will be some struggles along the way, but for now we have no reservations about her going to school. and neither does she.

i start classes next week! eek!

zane starts work on monday and there may or may not be a change in the plans after that...more later.

the conversations

avery continues to come out with new phrases and conversations everyday. she's started to pretend even more, and sometimes will refuse to answer to avery and repeatedly tells us she's: fiona (from shrek), snow white, a dog, etc. it's fun to see her play around with her reality and experiment with different roles.

nola had a vocabulary explosion-both vocally and signing-wise. around the same time, she suddenly relaxed more in the car. she had her phase of hating the car because that meant she wasn't running around and getting her energy out. i think the excitement of walking has worn off a bit, her understanding of the world has picked up a bit and she's good to go :)

this thing has taken me about 2 hours to write in between naps and cleaning and phone calls. but for the first time in a week i haven't had to take a nap mid-day! progress!

out takes

i'm getting my last wisdom teeth out tomorrow and need some humor right now :)

checking out a belly button.


playing in the band...


moment of sweetness


moment of cuteness

the beach!

carrying a 60+ lb load. and complaining that it looked like i had no hair. so mema tried to fix me up :)

smile!

with teeth...


and without...


just yesterday avery called us into the sunroom to have us look at a drawing she made on the chalkboard. a smiley face. first one she's ever drawn and it was beautiful :) then later she was coloring on the couch with some new twistable crayons and drew her second and third faces, the last with some teeth. she definitely gets any artistic abilities from her dada, and i couldn't be more happy :)

giving up tonight

so i just had a long drawn out post on avery's haircut, her insane eating abilities, her lovely choice of words this morning (i should probably say zane's inapporpriate choice of words that avery copied and then kept using), nola's word explosion, our decision to start getting up early-before the kids-and how much better it makes things, and our fun weekend out and about. and then something happened and half of it was gone. and i'm tired and just don't feel like reposting right now.

so instead, a silly picture of avery :)

i'll try again tomorrow.

the day the humidity made me weep...

...not really, but my bad mood this morning must have been in preparation to face the most disgustingly humid and miserably hot day i've felt in a while.

luckily, we made the most of today (after i had some coffee to pick me up).

nola showed off her belly-finding skills. (she's in the middle of saying "bellybellybellybelly" here, which in her language is more like "blblblblblbllaalalalbalalalalal")


the walsh girls, including cleo-the cat, took a walk up the street so nola could try out her "new" (avery's old, first) sneakers. they're a bit too small, but she loved walking with them, and let me hold her hand while we were going down the street. and avery loved leading the way with her stick. success!

this was just as it was starting to get really humid and gross. just sitting (in the shade) on the steps made us sweaty and red in the face. ugh.

ta-da! zane's latest project. as of right now, the wall part is finished, there's mulch in place and we just need to decide where/what plants we want to put in. this part of the yard used to be a mess of weeds and wild things, mostly because it was a pain to mow the slope (not that i do the mowing, but zane said so). now it'll look nice and be easy to maintain. yay!

after yard work and walks, avery and i went to jan's house for bagels and lemonade and a chance to catch up with her, meghan and my mom. such a nice girls lunch and i got avery into jan's playgroup/home preschool 2 mornings a week in the fall! so excited!! she had so much fun checking out all the toys in the basement and playing in the big backyard. more success all around! (ps, she had a skirt on that got taken off when she was playing in a little pool since i didn't bring extra clothes. we're a lot more laid back in the summer, but not so laid back that we don't dress the girls when we go out. like the 4 year old i saw in target in a t-shirt and underwear. hmmm.)

nola finally has just enough hair to use a little clip in the front without it looking like i'm trying too hard! (her poor curly head is it's own furnace and has been so sweaty the last couple days.)

and finally (no picture evidence), avery went on her potty TWICE this afternoon!!! we did a happy potty dance and then got her a milkshake from macdonalds for her accomplishment! excitement all around!

and now we're in the beautiful airconditioning. the girls are sound asleep. and i'm thinking a book in bed and early bedtime sounds heavenly.

new york, new york.

instead of driving to new hampshire for an over night trip with the girls like last year and have it blow up in our face, zane and i drove to new york for the day as our summer vacation.

and it was awesome!!

a friend of zane's from grad school lives outside of cooperstown, ny and was having a pig roast/fiesta at his house, complete with the option of camping out on his property. after much discussion, we figured we'd be more comfortable sleeping in a bed, and after the beds in and around cooperstown were absurdly expensive, we decided to drive home that night and sleep in our own bed.

the drive to cooperstown flew by. we stopped at rest stops and got coffee and snacks. we read a discipline book and talked about the girls. we drove through small farm town new york and marveled at the simplicity and serenity of it all. it was a beautiful day for a drive and we were in vacation mode.

cooperstown is all about baseball. and our plan was to get there mid-day, see the baseball hall of fame, eat lunch and get to mike's house early for some catching up and hanging out before heading out at 8pm. unfortunately, as we were driving through town we saw that the line for the hall of fame looked like it was about a 2 hour wait. so we parked, waited for the slowest trolley ever and finally got back into town to eat a late lunch.

we ate, we walked around the town and saw some of the statues outside of the hall of fame, we enjoyed the sunshine without extreme heat or humidity, we shared an ice cream cone, we found mike's house and walked in the woods, drank some keg beer, swatted away the million flies swarming, zane played some wiffle ball, we met some really nice people and finally zane got to learn all there is to know about roasting a pig.

in actuality, most of the day was spent waiting on something. food, trolleys, directions, pig...but it didn't matter. we were only responsible for ourselves. and the boredom that sometimes comes along with waiting was welcomed, treasured and savored, because boredom doesn't come around here very often.

we made it home a little after midnight, fell into bed and enjoyed waking up at 8am to 2 girls already awake and fed. zane said he was glad that we had made the decision to come home the night before. at 9am, when 2 overtired girls were cranky and yelling, he said maybe we should have stayed after all ;)

(thanks to mema for taking care of our girls, letting avery have a second birthday-complete with cupcakes!- and letting us have a mini-vacation!)